Price & Availability: the Impact of Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine on African Fertilizer Markets
In response to fertilizer availability challenges in sub-Saharan Africa which are fueled by the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine along with a host of pre-existing factors including COVID-19, VIFAA is now launching the Africa Fertilizer Watch to track regional and country-level market indicators, productivity and production distortions on food production and agriculture.
New Crisis Monitoring Tool Provides Insight into Sub-Saharan Africa’s Fertilizer Sector
In an effort to minimize the effects of an imminent food crisis in Africa, Development Gateway and partners, Fertilizer Development Center and AfricaFertilizer.org, updated the Africa Fertilizer Watch Dashboard. The Dashboard tracks regional and country-specific impacts from elevated global fertilizer prices, limited supplier inventory, and decreased affordability at the farmer level, which includes data from ten countries in Eastern and Southern Africa.
Nigeria’s Changing NPK Market (Part 2)
In their second blog exploring Nigeria’s changing fertilizer market, Vinisha Bhatia-Murdach and Scott Wallace dive deep into the details of the NPK fertilizer market and explore how Nigeria became a leader in this space. They also discuss why the VIFAA Nigeria dashboard is an important part of ensuring access to information at each point in fertilizer supply chain.
Improving Land and Crop Use Data in Nigeria – The VIFAA Innovation Fund
Our Visualizing Insights for Fertilizer in African Agriculture (VIFAA) Program launched an Innovation Fund to address data shortages relating to total crop production. Building on its track record of mapping land cover, Quantitative Engineering Design (QED) was selected to tackle the challenge of mapping Nigeria’s croplands. Through the Innovation Fund, DG and partners will use the resulting data and maps to answer two questions: (a) what is the total cropland under production in Nigeria and (b) what is the cropland under production by crop type.
Nigeria’s Changing Fertilizer Sector (Part 1)
In the past decade, there has been over $7 billion worth of private-sector investments into Nigeria’s agriculture sector. Why, and what is the impact of these investments? What does it mean for Nigerian farmers? In this blog, we explore these and other changes happening in the Nigerian fertilizer market.
Case Study: Fostering Sustainable Agriculture through Data-Driven Collaboration and Partnership: Ethiopia, Mozambique, and Nigeria
Through DG’s Visualizing Insights on Fertilizer for African Agriculture (VIFAA) program, we recently published a case study titled “Fostering Sustainable Agriculture through Data-Driven Collaboration and Partnership: Ethiopia, Mozambique, and Nigeria.” It dives deep into how the VIFAA program has impacted the fertilizer data and markets in Ethiopia, Mozambique, and Nigeria. In this blog, we explore the overall impact that the VIFAA program is making, why the program was needed, and offer some key highlights from the case study.
From Data Gaps to Impact: Key Insights from the VIFAA Program
Over the last six years, DG, together with its partners AfricaFertilizer (AFO) and Wallace & Associates, collaborated to implement the Visualizing Insights on Fertilizer for African Agriculture (VIFAA) Program. In the program’s final year (2024), the team undertook a “program learning process” to reflect on outcomes, challenges, and successes through internal interviews. This blog captures five key learnings, which we hope will guide similar programs aiming to bridge data gaps in agricultural development.